April 26, 2024
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BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” ā some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it ā I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury ā he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” ā and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging ā I was with her at that moment ā she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy namedā” “Yeah, sure ā you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that Iām on the phone with you now, after all thatās been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didnāt seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereās not a case of that. He wasnāt using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had ā if that were what the accusation involved ā the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. Iām not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, āYou know, itās not this, itās thatā? Because ā let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. TimesĀ piece, thatās what it lacked. Thatās what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Where the hell is the new W trailer?
I finally saw Burn After Reading over the weekend and really liked it, the ending doesn’t end as much as it just sort of stops but otherwise it’s a pretty caustic look at modern unfulfillment.
The W TV spot makes it look so cartoony, That’s My Bush-like. I said it before at some other movie website I no longer go to: the real insight into what was going on in the Nixon White House didn’t come until the memoirs started being published about 3 years after. It’s too soon to know what we really want to know.
Anyone else going to the Sideealk Film fest in scenic Birmingham, AL next weekend?? I’ll be there showing my short doc so come by!
I’m also going to be at the Austin Film Fest next month with my film and they just announced Danny Boyle and Charlie Kaufman are gonna be there. Sweeeet.
Hey, it’s Mgmax, still kickin’ after the Wells HE lobotomy — I mean, purge. Hey, we’re all in the same boat here.
But the W spots are making the film look much broader. Very close to “That’s My Bush!” But I’m still game. Looks like a hoot.
But I think we know quite a bit at this point.
Does HE now consist of 50% hateful Wells rants and 50% DZ insanity?
I don’t think it’s as much about him being President as it his how he got there…
D.Z. is now officially the best-informed person there. I’m not joking; given a choice between his occasional acquaintance with fact and people simply ranting that Sarah Palin eats baby brains to keep her midwestern-style hips wide, he wins.
My point is, a lot of the juiciest stuff about Nixon, that really informed every subsequent Nixon movie, didn’t come out till around the time of The Final Days c. 1977– drinking, talking to the pictures on the walls, making Kissinger pray with him, all that. This looks entertaining as hell, I just don’t know yet if I think it’s more than broad sketch comedy, and tells us anything we will still think nails it in a few years when the memoirs come pouring out.
Don-
Are you screening your ‘Geocaching’ short doc?
I have to say Mgmax is right – last time I checked DZ is one of the few left actually making sense.
DZ believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories. That automatically rules him out from the category of ‘people who make sense’.
Saw the W trailer before Ghost Town. Laughed my ass off. Looks like Oliver Stone is taking a step back from the bombast to tell a straight story a la Wall Street.
Josh Brolin RULES Lex’s ass!
Welcome Mgmax.
Now, can we please keep the HE talk circulating elsewhere? 20 months without it has been a pleasure and I have no need to engage it, even if it is you all trashing JW. Not interested, either way.
No…I’m screening a doc I did on these people who pull boats behind demolition derby cars on a racetrack and try to smash them up. Should play well in Alabama. It’s called “Drag King.”
http://sidewalk.bside.com/2008/films/dragking_sidewalk2008
The Geocaching one should be up on youtube any minute now…it’s been rendering there for a few days.
Never heard of ‘geocaching’ until I watched the short on your site.
‘Drag King’ looks fun. Good luck with it.
Sorry, my initial post tried to keep it subtle enough only to tip the hat to fellow fugees…
Mgmax, one of my favorite commenters, glad to have you here.
I think the point you made, about how we kept learning stuff about Nixon well after he left office, speaks to the trouble that Stone will have with the film. And considering we’ve had entire sitcoms lampooning his presidency, what can really be learned from this film? If it tells it straight, it’s boring an uninformed by the coming years of information we are to learn. If it is a satire, then there are no new jokes it can hope to tell. We’ve spent eight years of late night talkshows lambasting the man, enough already.
Re: W
Stone is in some way a cinematic genius. His use of music and image is groundbreaking and I find it hard to believe this movie will not be entertaining in some way.
But as politics or insight it will be junk. The trailer reveals it to be a garrish 1-D stereotype of a film that haters of Bush will eat up his supporters will dismiss outright.
Prediction: Better than expected box office. Oscar noms for Stone and Brolin and if W is depicted as particularly stupid (ie. a shy stupider than Jug Head in the Archie comics), the MSM will give it 4 stars for complexity and nuance.
Enjoy…just be sure to wipe off the seat after you leave.
Oh boy…’W’ does look entertaining but it is obviously a satire …I was looking forward to another JFK, NIXON… the rousing, brooding John Williams scores, epic running times, quick cuts, symbolism and the weighty conspiratorial, political cinematic smorgarsbords – looks like ‘W’ is a lightweight comedy.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but the movie is still on my must-see list.
BTW I was shocked to find out the next Bond flick, QUANTOM OF SOLACE’s running time is around 105 minutes.
London Film Festival and Wikipedia list it as such: http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/quantum_solace
Crikey, that is about the shortest Bond flick, since what, DR NO?
When I think of cutting satire and comedy, I don’t think of Oliver Stone.
Nicol, is there anybody on this site you don’t loathe?
Thanks, mystery….should be a fun fest even if everyone hates my movie š
Whoa, that abbreviated Bond runtime is a trip. Is it possible that was clocked before end credits were cut? It’s not uncommon for the earliest, earliest reviews and screenings to list running times that don’t take into account end credits. If we can assume they’ll tack on 8 or 9 minutes of credits, TECHNICALLY they could reach about 114 minutes.
Tomorrow Never Dies was the last “short” Bond at around 119, and before that, they hadn’t clocked in at under 120 since the Connery days.
The leanness might be an awesome virtue… though it could also have that X3 effect where following up a particularly epic entry with a comparatively compact one leaves the latter film feeling “minor.”
Spaceshiek…
For the record, Dr. No and Goldfinger are tied for shortest at 111 minutes.
So if that runtime holds, QOS would be the shortest Bond ever.
Lex, I’m glad you didn’t take a cheap potshot at Ratner’s X3, which wasn’t bad in any way, it just failed to scale the heights of the first two. It definitely could have been longer, but perhaps we’re better off this way, as I’m not sure Brett’s bloat would be any better than his economy.
SNOW ANGELS:
I finally got around to this last week, and wanted to say it might be Green’s best movie, but his own precious style gets in the way of his better instincts as a storyteller.
The first hour or so of Snow Angels was beautiful, lyrical, chilly, and pretty riveting. It’s also the least mannered shit he had done pre-Pineapple. THEN after the big central tragedy… UGH…. he just has to go in and do his temporal-change bullshit, and we get that godawful scene where Rockwell boxes a tree, and some of Katt’s dialogue is too forced and “wacky,” and then there’s that MOVIE-STOPPING, pathetic bit at the bar with Rockwell dancing with those old people…
Mercifully, he grabs the reins again in time to salvage it, and the last reel or so was pretty powerful stuff. It’s a shame, I was going to say Rockwell OWNED that movie, and his last scene is UNFORGETTABLY disturbing… but FUCK, why did DGG have to push his quirky bullshit so hard there in the middle and embarass everyone involved, especially when they were otherwise doing such stellar work???????
Frustrating but good movie.
And OLIVIA THIRLBY and KATE BECKINSALE COMMAND YOUR ASS, holy shit that’s like dueling multigenerational hotness.
My only real problem with X3 is that it feels like it should be a Scott Summers/Cyclops story, yet the powers that be demanded that it once again be centered around Wolverine. Thus we have the central arc being Logan being torn because he’s oh-so-madly in love with a woman that he’s known for maybe 2-3 days in the last month or so. Had the third film revolved at least partially around Summers struggling to take down his long-time girlfriend/fiancee, who he’s still grieving over, who just killed his surrogate father, then it would have likely been just as good as the first two parts.
Also, oddly enough, the acting of many of the secondary characters leaves something to be desired (the character actor who plays the president is uncommonly lousy). And, of course, the producers given in to Halle Berry and giving her more screen time didn’t help things either. Still, X3 isn’t a disaster and it’s quite entertaining, but it is somewhat of a missed opportunity in the grand scheme of things.
That scene in Snow Angels of Rockwell dancing in the bar with the old people is my single favorite part of the whole movie.
Lex, I may not be in total alignment with your taste.
I will say that X3 is probably the best Brett Ratner movie he’s ever made, for what that’s worth, and at least one of the action scenes is legitmately well-done – he knows how to do that stuff better than Singer.
I understand your points, Scott, but I’m not sure that a film based around James Marsden would have been the answer. He’s not a bad actor, but just not nearly compelling as Jackman, and his character certainly wasn’t written to be as compelling in the previous two films, either. You’re asking the audience to shift their allegiance and interest in a way that would have been very off-putting.
It’s a trilogy, and that trilogy needs to have a through character that people are invested in more than anyone else. In this case, it was Wolverine, for better or worse. He’s the outsider (along with Rogue) and his struggle is the one we get the most insight on over the course of the films.
X3 might not be a disaster, but to say it’s “not bad in any way” is fucking absurd. It’s mildly diverting, but it’s barely a movie. Anything interesting that it seems to do, Ratner pussies out and reverses it before we leave the theater.
Whoa! They had the balls to kill Professor X?? Oh, never mind.
Wow, the movie’s going to end on a sad note with Magneto now missing his one true friend/adversary and now completely powerless? Oh, never mind.
Plus, it takes the Jean Grey character, scratches her entire iconic character arc and turns her into a wildly uninteresting figure, just immolating people for no rhyme or reason.
Oh, yeah, and, lest I forget: “I’m the Juggernaut, bitch!”
“Not bad in any way”? Really?? I’m sorry, the movie’s not really worth getting worked up about one way or the other, but someone needs to speak up when great movies are slighter or shitty movies are championed.
Wow, really, Jeff?
Maybe I should watch it again… it certainly stands out… but as the review in Slant mentioned, why is the old woman dressed like Freddy Kruger? Why does it go on so long? What is its purpose beyond DGG being indulgent?
And I am a big fan of indulgence; It’s just that so much of the movie plays so raw, it’s especially depressing and annoying when DGG plays his quirk card and overplays annoying scenes then cuts out connective scenes. And, yeah, all of that is his usual shtick, but it’s an annoying (to me) style; I recently caught up with all but GW on DVD, and can say that his bullshit “style” trumps almost everything that’s good about his movies — the actors, the atmosphere, the mood, the small-town verisimilitude all suffer when he pulls out some broad PRETENDING TO BE A CLOWN (All the Real Girls) or some underground hostel for runaways (Undertow) or the most fascinating character in your movie losing all his complexity to mug and punch trees for a half hour (Snow Angels.)
SO frustrating, because this guy has the goods.
And if I’m really in Lex Prick mode, I’ll add that Pineapple Express would’ve rocked 10 times harder had DGG dumped all that uneven stoner humor and shrill screaming and just stuck to the skewed Tango and Cash homage; The last act is a trillion times more energetic and silly and awesome than the haphazard sloppiness that occupies the first 90 minutes.
Anyway, back to Snow Angels, that story with Arangano and Thirlby so completely rules, it, along with Rockwell, Sedaris and Beckinsale’s devotion, helps overcome the needless auteurial indulgences. They’re all so fucking good in it, it’s a shame DGG steps all over their hard work with his NONSENSE (see also, Tom Noonan – a great actor — stuck in cartoonish bandleader mode.)
Lex, obviously we’re coming from different places. I thought the last act of Pineapple Express was lazy and clicheed and the weakest part of the whole movie. I guess I’ll take DGG’s indulging in scenes that have no narrative function way the hell over Seth Rogen indulging in wanting to turn himself into a pudgy, mysteriously-competent-for-no-good-reason action hero, any day of the week.
Moby Dick:
“We wanted to take a graphic novel sensibility to a classic narrative”
beowulf beowulf beowulf…
why why why
there is no reason… will they tap into a fan base, all those fans of moby dick who also liked wanted and 300?
fuck fuck fuck
ishmael whered you go
with beowulf…!
ROGEN’S GIRLFRIEND (who was also in NEVER BACK DOWN OWNAGE) fucking RUUUUUUUUUUUUULED.
FUCK YEAH.
Huh? Was she in some CGI version of Moby Dick?
I was looking forward to another JFK, NIXON… the rousing, brooding John Williams scores, epic running times, quick cuts, symbolism and the weighty conspiratorial, political cinematic smorgarsbords – looks like ‘W’ is a lightweight comedy.
The difference between Nixon and W. (JFK is its own thing, given that it’s not necessarily “about” JFK) is that Nixon had already been “rehabilitated” enough by 1995 that Stone could do an overblown, self-consciously “Shakespearean” take on the man and still somehow be taken seriously. If he tried that with Bush he would be laughed out of every multiplex in the country; a Nixon-like W. would probably be funnier than whatever the hell Stone is actually doing. But I’m sure in fifteen years he’ll give us his 37th “director’s cut” of W., complete with brooding John Williams score and never-before-seen footage of Josh Brolin trying to look all tortured and serious.
So who is in love with the new Killers track “Human”. ME.
Also, Ladyhawke’s self-titled album (yes, she is named after the film) is particularly brilliant.
(sorry I have absolutely nothing film-related to discuss. i’m feeling quite blah this evening.)
Nicol do you imagine W as being treated as some kind of Stone comeback simply because it will be anti-Bush? After the mainstream WTC and the critical/commercial failure of Alexander, Stone doesn’t seem to be getting much love these days. I get the impression that he is regarded as a has been who once upon a time made great films.
Scott Mendelson,
I agree with your X3 take. The decision to kill Cyclops was a head scratcher, the charcter really got shortchanged in the franchise. Oh well, maybe he’ll fare better in the inevitable reboot.
Welcome Mgmax.
Lex- totally on board with your take on Snow Angels. My biggest problem with the movie is that it had to include all that tragedy to begin with. DGG’s best moments are the quiet ones and he was able to contrast the cute as hell high school love story with the Beckinsale-Rockwell story of the high school love story that fell apart with age quite nicely.
But there wasn’t a single theme in the movie that was deepened when it turned to tragedy and the movie would have been much more interesting if the relationships had played out (especially exploring Beckinsale’s feelings regarding her daughter) instead of going all lifetime movie of the week with the abuse and revenge.
And there is no actor that elicits a bigger groan when I see his name in the credits than Nicky Katt. He has been doing variations on this same guy for 15 years now, it is time for him to find some supporting role in a cable show and stay out of movies. Sedaris was a suprise though, and I did love how her she was immediatly by Beckinsale’s when she needed her.
Over all the movie was a bit of a let down since it could have been so much better. Still better than Young@ Heart though, sat through that last night and its easily the most overhyped film of the year.
And I agree with MDOC that it was near criminal how the X-men franchise marginalized the cyclops role. Cyclops is the heart of the team, the center of the story, the first ten years of the comic was his character arc. In the comics he is a heathcliff charector but the movies turned him into Ralph Bellamy.
And this Moby Dick movie sounds horrible, King Kong all over again. Universal should never spend more than $100 million on a movie. They just never deliver at that level.
I can understand some of the feelings of acceptance of X-Men 3 floating around here, but it’s really just a reverse-Harry Potter effect. Some have pointed out that while the Harry Potter movies improve massively once Chris Columbus is gone, Columbus did do a lot of the work in terms of setting up the world, especially working with the cast to establish their characters, and he made a lot of good choices early on that paid off with other, better directors. In that sense, X-Men 3 is a watchable movie only because of all of the good work Singer did on the first two. With that much in place — establishing relevant themes, casting mostly excellent actors well-suited to their roles, etc. — X-Men 3 was protected, to some degree, from the damage Ratner could inflict.
That said, Ratner did about as poorly as I could imagine, given all of the positives going in. It’s a textbook case of a movie where *what* happens is not so objectionable as *how* it happens: rushed, half-assed, full of clumsy Ratnerisms. Some of it is admittedly kinda fun, and if it was the first X-Men movie, it would probably be better-regarded, as not nearly as terrible as it could’ve been.
But the way it fumblingly “ends the trilogy” is just awful. Most franchises, you can kinda understand why they’d want to stop (at least for awhile) at the trilogy point. But X-Men is the rare story that could make total sense going across four, five, six movies — a real series, not a rushed “trilogy.” You can explore different storylines, different combinations of characters, etc. (You might argue that it would make an even better TV series, but the movies would keep it from getting overly caught up in a comics-style tangle of mythology of soap opera.) The self-destruction on display in X-Men 3 is ridiculous from any perspective, art or commerce. Someone should rescue it without resorting to a lame-ass “reboot” (which was great for Batman and Bond but has been tossed around far too often since then).
Also, Snow Angels is the best movie of the year so far, and probably DGG’s best movie overall. I don’t find him precious or indulgent at all; the moments Lex and others have called out play like grace notes. And not to be all “but in the book…” (since I haven’t read it), but the abuse and revenge and guilt stuff is, by most accounts, out of the novel.
And hcat, wow, I am more or less elated any time I see Nicky Katt’s name in the credits. His mini-monologue about drinking blood in Full Frontal destroys me everytime.
Did a double-bill last night of “Mancora” (which just got a limited theatrical release according to this morning’s Variety) and “Roman de Gare,” a pair of mysterious, semi-road movies that’s plots turn on people falling to their deaths from great heights – one as an inciting incident, one as a concluding one. Weird way to start the week.
Oh, and new Jenny Lewis and TV on the Radio hit today. Hurrah for iTunes in helping make the connection between music release date wild-posting on Robertson and my eardrums that much faster.
Well we obviously disagree on Katt, thats fine, it might be just me (full frontal is one of those titles I have been meaning to rent for years and never get around to).
And I didn’t communicate it correctly in the above post that I am quite a fan of DGG’s direction and felt that he elevated the material of Snow Angels but felt that he was hamstrung by having to stick to the original text.
I do not often have those tex avery wolf moments but I just saw a picture of Christina Hendricks from the emmys and my exact words were “ARUUUGAAAA YIPP YIP Wapooieeee” while smashing a stapler against my head. How for all the praise of Mad Men that has been given on this board did no one mention this women?
I usually don’t like to put in the time to follow television dramas, but between all the praise this show has gathered and the presence of God’s reason for form-fitting 60’s sweaters, the first season is going to the top of the netflix queue.
“When I think of cutting satire and comedy, I don’t think of Oliver Stone.”
Go rent U-TURN. And then you will.
I saw U-Turn when it came out on VHS about a hundred years ago (or maybe it was 1998) and…yeah? It struck me as a one more version of all those post-Tarantino zany crime comedies that were so prevalent at the time.
Also, the only version of Moby Dick that I want to see is directed by Terrence Malick and five hours long.
U-Turn certainly isn’t original, but I sort of like it. The cast is good and it has some pretty funny moments. It’s forgettable and I’m not in any hurry to see it again soon, but I was entertained by it.
I remember Phoenix having a small but quite funny part in U-turn and Powers Boothe being quite good in it but that it wasn’t worth a second viewing.
Stone’s best is still Salvador.
Phoenix and Billy Bob Thornton are both quite amusing in U-Turn.
My burning question of the day: When people decide to remake a classic, or produce a movie based on a real-life incident…. do they ever bother to check what happened the last time someone had the same idea?
http://movingpictureblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed.html
Perhaps their version of events differs from yours.
(Don’t hit!)
U-TURN OWNS YOUR ASS.
TOBY N. TUCKER 4 LIFE.
i’m a ‘u-turn’ fan…
but tough call, hcat! ‘salvador’ is great (hinging on wood’s terrific performance and the tight battle sequences), but i’d have to give the edge to ‘platoon’ as stone’s ‘best ever’.
i consider myself a child of the vietnam war, having lost a relative and with several close family friends/members as veterans of that war (or police action, as it was referred to for so long). towards the end of the war my mother attended university at berkeley and i remember the huge anti-war demonstrations and social upheaval, even at that tender young age.
my calabash uncle from austin, texas (drafted) came back from ‘nam with half his butt blown off and he would talk about his experiences now and again over the years, but he never really opened up to me about the things he had seen and done. i remember asking him about ‘platoon’ on the phone after it came out so many years later, what he thought of it, and he went quiet, i could tell he got choked up. he said the film was damn realistic, that’s how it was for the men. perhaps that has something to do with my major soft spot for ‘platoon’.
weirdly, i just watched the most excellent ‘making of’ feature the other night for the first time called ‘tour of the inferno’ (it wasn’t on the original nz dvd release of the ‘platoon’ special edition – i’ve recently discovered that we often don’t get the same plethora of special features down here as the US dvds for some bizarre reason, such a bummer – but the US version is available here now). any fan of ‘platoon’ who hasn’t seen ‘tour of the inferno’ (i’m probably the only one) should do so right away; it’s a fascinating look into the mindset of (2 tour vet, if i remember correctly) stone and the cast during the intense, largely guerrilla shoot (legendary by now i guess), the difficult conditions and somewhat brutal tactics used by stone and dye to get the performances required from the young cast, reactions from the vets of stone’s platoon, etc. excellent stuff.
There is no “right” answer for which Stone is best, since that period from “Salvador” through “Nixon” is the longest sustained run of TOTAL OWNAGE by any director EVER; Even Scorsese, Woody, and Altman would change things up and do a minor work in between masterpieces, but Stone came out BLAZING for a stretch unmatched by any other recent director for its ferocity and singularity of purpose. The only slight weak link in there is “Heaven and Earth,” which is solid but uneven. But everything else in that stretch is like a balls-out, full-tilt auterial MASTERWORK OF WHOLESALE OWNAGE AND DEVASTATION.
And though it falls outside of those parameters and isn’t very highly regarded, “Any Given Sunday” is two hours and 45 minutes of fever-pitched LUNACY and AWESOMENESS.
“There is no “right” answer for which Stone is best, since that period from “Salvador” through “Nixon” is the longest sustained run of TOTAL OWNAGE by any director EVER”
Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork Orange…
Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York, Air Force…
Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel, Diary of a Chambermaid, Simon of the Desert, Belle de Jour, The MIlky Way, Tristana…
I was taking into account the timetable as well, which I should’ve made more clear. Stone cranked those out at about one per year, where Kubrick had three or four years between some of those.
Bringing Up Baby is one of the worst movies ever made, so I’m dismissing that Hawks list.
Mgmax, you’re mistaking ‘total ownage’ for ‘a work of quality’ when in fact, what Lex means is ‘tits and guns’ or the cinematic equivalent thereof.
“Bringing Up Baby is one of the worst movies ever made”
Also, there is nothing else to say about this statement but that it is literally stupid. Have you never seen BRAIN OF BLOOD? THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS? PSYCHED BY THE 4-D WITCH?
What the hell is wrong with Psyched By the 4-D Witch? Jeez, man, you’re hard to please.
Stone has always been an undisciplined, throw-shit-at-the-wall director with no real visual ability.
Platoon had those believable, harrowing “he was there” moments — which were completely undone by the hokey Christ Father/Devil Father stuff, the spell-it-out letters home, and some awful, on-the-nose dialogue. He couldn’t just tell his story — he had to try to impose great themes on it, and he wasn’t up to the task. And it’s a shame, because it may be the only Vietnam film made by an actual vet, and because there’s good stuff in there.
In NBK, he thought he was being clever by randomly mixing up film stock the way he randomly mixed up his message, and he directed Tommy Lee Jones into his second-worst performance. (Schumacher saw to it that it wasn’t number one.) If you want to make a film condemning the glamorization of violence, don’t make all the victims sleazy scum who deserve to be killed, or buffoons who die for laughs. Man Bites Dog was a more coherent and more disturbing look at the same subject.
The Doors was embarrassing. The only way I got through it was by playing “drink along with Jim.” Just thinking of Jeffrey Beaumont in that Ray Manzarek wig makes me giggle.
Nixon was better than I expected, despite some distracting casting. Am I the only one two had a hard time buying a Kissinger who towered over a sometimes-Welsh Nixon?
There are good scenes and performances in his work, little nuggets you can find if you’re willing to sift.
Like Paul Schrader, he should have remained a screenwriter. He needs an actual director to cut through the shit and keep the good stuff. He has no filter.
THE DOORS FUCKING OWNS.
And now I will tell you why. When you see concert footage of the REAL JIM MORRISON, he’s like this 1971-looking pretentious douche CROONING some spacey dirge, but in the movie, Kilmer and Stone turn him into a MAN-GOD PRESIDING OVER THE WORLD, OWNING people and banging chicks and GROWING A BEARD and slinging around a bottle of Jack and looking like Kurt Russell in THE THING.
Watching that movie is, like SCARFACE or BOOGIE NIGHTS or THERE WILL BE BLOOD or GOODFELLAS, exilerating because THAT’S THE LIFE OF WHOLESALE GOD-LIKE INDIVIDUAL-CONQUERS-ALL OWNAGE that we all ought to aspire to.
Your assertion that he can’t direct is kinda ridiculous, even from a Stone detractor. Other than maybe Scorsese or Lynch or Lee on a great day, no director of that generation is such a distinct auteurial presence in every shot, frame and theme of his films.
NATURAL BORN KILLERS is fucking PURE AWESOMENESS from start to finish. I’ve watched that 450 times, easily, and used to keep it on a constant loop so I’d get in five or six viewings a day, the whole time drinking and headbanging to it and pumping iron and BLASTING METAL and fucking RULING.
Paul Schrader is great and all, but you’re really gonna compare his old-school cutting and guazy taupe haze with Stone’s BOMBAST and SHOCK-AND-AWE MANIA?
Here’s Paul Schrader’s style. “Uh, hey, can we put a butterscotch filter on this scene? DONE.”
Stone is out mixing the sound and film stocks and casting AWESOME BAD-ASS MOTHERFUCKERS and making sure EVERY SCENE FEATURES SOMEONE LITERALLY OR FIGURATIVELY GETTING OWNED AND PUMMELED.
Subtlety is for douchebags.
For those in need of a proper OWNING, American Gangster is currently on HBO.
FUCK YEAH.
frankb, you obviously have your own take on ‘platoon’ (which i think we can both agree is NOT an exercise in subtlety) and i can respect that, but i just wanted to add that from watching ‘tour of the inferno’, stone seemed very interested in the dynamic of ‘fragging’ (vietnam war term for killing a member of your own unit), which obviously influenced his treatment of the berenger/dafoe relationship at the core of the film. i remember the scenario being criticised when the movie came out, only to have many vets come forward with stories of fragging within their own units (much to the chagrin of the military, who had quite successfully swept incidents of fragging in vietnam under the carpet). anyway, makes me wonder if stone didn’t witness some first-hand fragging during his tours, and making ‘platoon’ was a bit of psychotherapy.
Lex, do you have any idea what you look like to the outside world? Every time you rant about how wonderful it is to ‘aspire to the life of a god’ there’s this subtext to the writing that is obviously unintentional.
I like you better when you’re drunk and sad because at least then you’re honest.
The subtext is I am a suburban white-collar douche who obviously isn’t getting any and finds his bullshit job and social life unfulfilling.
But I am legitimately 100% serious when I say I’m confounded by how people (like yourself, Poland, etc.) watch movies from such a reserve, how you seem resistent to THE VISCERAL.
It’s like so many of you guys enjoy movie watching as some sort of intellectual lab experiment.
I watch movies to feel the charge of awesome shit and vicariously live through the kind of shit a fat desk jockey cannot.
I don’t love movies so I can think about them in intellectual terms, though I’m certainly about to do so.
I want to see naked women, fast cars, and people getting their asses fucking owned.
That’s what I want out of a movie, not some bullshit sociopolitical reading as a disinterested outside observer.
All we can be is what we are…apparently.
I don’t know what that means. Hey, never mind that shit, son, I just sent you an e-mail.
McM is my new pen pal. It’s awesome.
Did I overlook something? I never said anything even close to U-TURN being Stone’s best movie. I merely cited it as an example of his ability to do comedy.
U-TURN IS YOUR GOD. BOW TO IT. BOW.
Cadavra, I was just saying that, if that’s his comedy example, it’s kind of a mixed bag. I haven’t seen U-Turn since 10 years ago, but it struck me as kind of flailing and overdirected. Which is okay – most good action directors don’t really understand how to shoot comedy.
Comedy sucks. Fuck all comedy.
COMEDIES SHOULDN’T EVEN COUNT AS MOVIES. SAM PECKINPAH DIDN’T MAKE COMEDIES. TONY SCOTT DOESN’T MAKE COMEDIES. FINCHER DOESN’T MAKE COMEDY. MICHAEL MANN HAS NO CINEMATIC SENSE OF HUMOR.
I watch movies to see hardcore shit. On that scale, U-TURN is total ownage, because it’s wall to wall mayhem and misanthropy.
Lex, are you in wacky character mode or is this some kind of suicide note? I hope it’s the latter!
Wait a minute…Lex hates comedies and he’s a failed stand up comedian? It all makes perfect sense! Awesome.
And to diss Paul Schrader for not owning…the man who brought us Hardcore, The Yakuza, Cat People, Rolling Thunder and Taxi Driver? How many tits and gore can one man bring the world?
U-Turn is a pretty great movie. In a larger sense it’s a piece of garbage, but it’s so much fun and really nasty. I’d rather watch it than, say, Nixon.
Big Perm, I live to amuse you.
I didn’t diss Paul Schrader. Try rereading what I said. Schrader is fucking awesome, I was merely responding to frankbooth’s assertion that Stone’s directorial skillz were at the same better-as-SCRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBE level as Schrader’s, which is DAFT. Schrader has directed some major awesomeness — you forgot to add CAT PEOPLE, AMERICAN GIGOLO, AND AUTO FOCUS, which all handily qualify as MASSIVE MEGAOWNAGE.
But to compare his 1.85:1 taupe-timed straightforwardness to some MANIAC directing HIS FUCKING ASS OFF with every trick in the book and ASSOWNING THE VIEWER INTO HELPLESS SUBMISSION is a little ridiculous. Stone OWNS THE VIEWER’S ASS UP AND DOWN THE BLOCK, MAKING THEM CRY UNCLE LIKE A WEAK LITTLE BITCH.
Schrader’s directorial gigs are at least slightly more restrained, and I wouldn’t exactly offer up THE WALKER or TOUCH alongside GORDON GEKKO STEAMROLLING YOUR ASS.
Also there’s a part in U-TURN where Penn is fucking J-Lo and she blue-balls him mid-bang to start moping or some shit, and goes off to the side of frame and blows his load in the bushes on his own.
TOTAL OWNAGE. FUCK YEAH. BLOW THAT SHIT.
Also, if you doubt the power of THE TURN, Nolte and Boothe have an appointment to OWN YOUR FUCKING ASS.
Should I try to hit Spearmint Rhino before it closes?
I have a boner.
So apparently AMC pulled Hounddog from their theaters after “family values groups” complained.
Please do.
I really like U-Turn. Sure, it’s not original and it’s quite tasteless and classless in almost every conceivable way, but I dug its sinister small town nastiness and absurd histrionics. I actually think Penn is quite good, so too Lopez and some of the supporting cast. The final scenes are just downright ludicrous, which – to be sure – is part of its fun.
(Lex, see what I did there, I qualified why I like something instead of merely exclaiming it owns like a madman in heat.)
“Watching that movie is, like SCARFACE or BOOGIE NIGHTS or THERE WILL BE BLOOD or GOODFELLAS, exilerating because THAT’S THE LIFE OF WHOLESALE GOD-LIKE INDIVIDUAL-CONQUERS-ALL OWNAGE that we all ought to aspire to.”
Do you fall asleep before the end of these movies?
Lex, why don’t you go out and get turned down for more auditions?
I don’t think there’s a spot for this elsewhere, so…
I’m not sure MCN did Ebert’s experiment in satire any favors with the headline listed on it — along the lines of “Ebert Likes Creationism as Much as He Liked ‘Sleepless in Seattle.'” It’s pretty easy to look up his “Sleepless” review and learn that, in fact, he DID (unaccountably, I’d argue) like it.
I have friends who ten years later still rag on me for taking them to see U-TURN.
I thought it started out as a comedy of increasing errors but ended up way too out there. But Penn is actually funny in it, particularly when he lays into Phoenix.
Leah,
I didn’t say anything about the fragging, and I don’t doubt that it happened in reality. I have no problem with it. Like I said, the stuff that Stone drew on from his own experience is the best stuff in the movie.
It’s his grubby fingers all over the screen, being self-consciously poetic and telling us how important his big statement is that I object to. All the heavy-handed, overworked metaphorical stuff. Platoon goes from searing account to bad student film and back again, repeatedly.
Watching a Stone film is like listening to a ramble by an intelligent, entertaining druggie who’s under the influence. He may be funny at times, he may raise your hair and say some things that are true, but the rest of the time he’s saying “me, me, me,” and telling you how the Mayans invented foosball.
i was just doing an addendum about the fragging because i failed to mention it in my first rambling post, frank, it wasn’t directed at you, i just made it sound that way with my hurried writing. plus, you’re far too funny to disagree with. and i actually do agree with some of your assessment of stone, so…let’s partially agree! sweet as.
Did you leave an “s” off the end of your last sentence? And if so, how did you know?
cuz i’m a wise old booze-hag, frankbooth
(‘sweet as’ has about ten different meanings depending on how it’s used; trying to think of american equiv. in this case…sweet as = it’s all good. i hope you were asking, but if not, a little unsolicited lesson in kiwi never killed anyone)
The Visceral is what we all want… some of us simply require it to have some quality other than being loud or bright or jiggly to get excited.
I was just making another joke, Leah — a dumb one.
And I know all about you people and your country. I’ve seen Meet the Feebles six times!
classic! everyone should watch ‘meet the feebles’ six times. pj is one sick puppy. (i’ve known brian sergent – voice of ‘trevor the rat’ – for ages, he’s a good guy)
i’ve got ‘meet the feebles’ on the brain thanks to frankbooth…here’s a preview in case anyone needs a bit of a laugh on this sad day sans the great paul newman (the trailer is ultra tame, watch the actual movie if you really need a laugh, there’s nothing else like it. not for those with delicate sensibilities, tho)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMGuABm-zKk
MEET THE FEEBLES is brilliant. Beyond gross, but there’s not a wasted drop. It’s high satire.